Hungry In Hogtown

Lokum-motive: Turkish Delight, halva, dondurma and wondrous Istanbul

Of all the many ways to introduce newcomers to Istanbul, the drive into the city from Ataturk airport may well be the worst.

Short on beauty, at least the cab ride from the airport is a baptism by fire into one essential element of life in the metropolis on the Bosporus: traffic.

It's a half hour of cars swerving in and out of lanes, and aggressive drivers riding the horn and careening to their destinations with an urgency usually seen only in emergency workers.  We saw two accidents on that first taxi ride: one was a car flipped on its side on the median with the driver standing beside his wreck with his shirt dirtied and his pants ripped; minutes later, we watched two drivers arguing over their fender bender.

Then we got to experience the problem personally.  Just blocks from our hotel, our cab was lightly rear-ended by another cab.  No matter, our cabbie checked the damage using the passenger side mirror, muttered a few imprecations at the other driver under his breath, then zoomed on.

What compounds the terror is that not only does everyone drive like a maniac, but none of the backseats in the cabs have functioning seat belts.  The shoulder straps are there, but the buckles are buried under the backseats or are non-existent.

I survived the trip using a combination of white knuckles, closed eyes, and prayers to Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Ganesha, and L. Ron Hubbard.

 

Once safe and sound at our hotel, we gathered our wits, consulted our map, and hit the town -- on foot -- to sample a few of the local specialties.

Istiklal Caddesi is a glorious pedestrian boulevard in the heart of Istanbul's cosmopolitan Beyoglu neighbourhood.  On our first night, on the cusp of sundown in the middle of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, we entered Istiklal Caddesi off a tiny sidestreet and were immediately immersed into a hive of humanity that easily qualifies as the pedestrian equivalent of the automobile traffic we'd just escaped.

But whereas all those cars terrify, this street invigorates.  Between the buzz of the faithful lining up in front of restaurants to break their daily fast and the many restaurants and cafes, some Western, some Turk, eager to help them do it, it was hard for us to decide where to stop first.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that hard.

Ever since I read Harold McGee's article praising Turkish ice cream, I'd been craving a taste.  Dondurma, as it's known in Turkey, has a uniquely chewy texture, a quality it owes to two factors: first, it's made using powdered orchid bulbs, known as salep in Turkish (which translates to "fox testicle" in English); second, it's not so much churned as it is kneaded and stretched vigorously.

The two processes work hand-in-hand.  Salep contains glucomannan, a carbohydrate that, as McGee explains, "bind[s] up and block[s] the movement of water molecules."  Kneading the ice cream turns this "network into a dense elastic mass" so thick it can be pulled like taffy and sliced with a knife.

Several cafes along Istiklal Caddesi sell salep ice cream.  Some emphasize the more theatrical aspects of this dessert: they pull cylinders of dondurma out of their freezers using extended metal rods, then they stretch and pull it, showing off its amazing pliability.  The only thing I can compare it to is glass blowing, and the oozing fluidity of molten hot glass as it's being pulled from ferociously hot ovens and shaped by the glassmaker.

We stopped at a few places.  I'd read about Mado during some pre-trip research and then had it recommended again by Cenk, a native of Istanbul and the author of Cafe Fernando, a droolworthy food blog.  Some argue it is Istanbul's best ice cream maker, and they do serve a delightful dondurma with a mild taste and a slight chew.

At the cheaper stands on Istiklal Caddesi, teenage boys spin their ice creams this way and that, teasing the buyer by almost juggling them, before handing over cups of dondurma that are far chewier and less flavourful than the more refined product at Mado.  This version encapsulates Rachel's objection to dondurma: done poorly, it reminds her of the gummy gelatinous texture that is a hallmark of cheap industrial North American ice cream.

A little further down the street we stopped at Haci Bekir, Istanbul's most renowned candy shop, which is famous for its Turkish Delight and halva.  Unfortunately, I've never been a fan of Turkish Delight.  In Canada, the only exposure most of us get to "Turkish Delight," known as "lokum" in Turkey, is the vile Big Turk chocolate bar -- a sickly sweet ribbon of hyper-sweet, fruit flavoured jelly enrobed in cheap milk chocolate.  The real stuff, however, I now love.  The version at Haci Bekir is delicately sweet, and its most noticeable flavours are nuts and rose water or mastic. 

Halva, a slightly sweet, grainy, tahini-based dessert, was already one of my favourite childhood treats.  My father would purchase it occasionally, and I remember gorging on it without ever having any idea what it was.  We went for a brick of pistachio because it works so well in most sweets, and halva is no exception.  This halva distinguishes itself for its texture, which seemed both a little moister and much finer than the tinned product sold in most Toronto groceries.

Already stuffed to the gills on Turkish sweets on first night in the city, we were nonetheless lured into a little hole in the wall pastry shop by the constant stream of people lining up for a mystery food being scooped into bowls from a big baking dish and slathered with chocolate sauce.  Whatever it was, business was brisk.

Turns out that Inci does a brisk business in profiteroles.  Unfortunately, we have to give these treats a thumbs down.  The choux pastry was good but the filling was heavy and a little coarse and likely thickened with cornstarch.

I returned to Mado every day of our trip, some days more than once, for a cup of dondurma.  To this day, the only Turkish I've really mastered is "Merhaba!  Salepi dondurma, lutfen."  I'm not sure that "Hello, salep ice cream, please," made me a great tourist in the eyes of Mado's staff, but it did make me a very happy eater.

Of course, it's easy to bring home a little lokum and halva, but ice cream travels poorly.  I was determined, however, to try making dondurma at home, so I purchased small amounts of salep and mastic for a small ransom at Istanbul's Spice Bazaar and decided to try my luck in my own kitchen.

Let's just say I'm still trying.  I have now created reasonable versions of dondurma at home.  Unfortunately, I lack the equipment to properly work the ice cream and it shows in the final product.  My version of dondurma has a far more pronounced mastic flavour than the versions we ate in Istanbul, but it is also far less chewy, the quality I love most.

Mastic is also a challenging ingredient to use.  It comes in jagged crystals and is actually the resin of a tree native to the Greek island of Chios.  Not only does it apparently contribute to the chewy texture of dondurma -- we saw mastic chewing gum for sale in Turkey --  it adds a sharply resinous, almost piney flavour to dishes, even when used in minute quantities.  I used less than one gram in my first batch of dondurma, and decided to scale it back ever so slightly for my second.

I've played with the amount of salep I use too, but I don't think I can approximate the texture of the real deal until I make dondurma in my stand mixer with liquid nitrogen, something I don't intend to do until summer.  I'm betting that the paddle attachment on my KitchenAid will provide the kneading muscle it takes to make this ice cream behave, and the liquid nitrogen will give me the temperatures I need to keep it chilled while doing so.

That said, if you happen to get your hands on some salep, a product unavailable outside of Turkey as far as I know, and a little mastic, which is available in most Turkish or Greek groceries, including Greek House Food Market in Toronto (where one of the owners told me many Greeks chew nuggets of mastic like gum), do try the recipe at the end of this post.

And if you can't get your hands on the ingredients, visit Istanbul.  For all my complaining about the terror of the ride into the city, all I remember about the cab back to the airport was sadness at saying goodbye to a beautiful city and its incredible food.

Dondurma -- Turkish ice cream

This recipe is still a work in progress.  Texturally, it's not quite there yet, though the flavours are excellent.  In order to improve its texture, I suggest making this ice cream with liquid nitrogen in a stand mixer so it can be kneaded thoroughly.

500ml 35% whipping cream
500ml 3.25% whole milk
0.8g mastic (a piece about the size of a fingernail)
12g salep (approximately 3 tsp)
200g granulated sugar (approximately 1C)

1. Freeze the mastic.  When frozen, grind to a fine powder in a coffee grinder with 10 grams (approximately 2 tsp) of the granulated sugar.
2. Heat the remaining sugar, all of the cream, and 250ml of the whole milk over medium-low heat.  Sprinkle the sugar and mastic mixture and salep over the milk mixture, whisking vigorously.  Heat the mixture to 80C, whisking constantly.  Remove the mixture from the heat, and add the remaining milk.
3. Chill the mixture completely, preferably overnight.
4. Churn chilled mixture in ice cream maker as per maker's instructions.

Seducktion: an afternoon at The Fat Duck

"Nooooo!"

We were in the middle of the fifth course of our tasting menu at The Fat Duck when I earned the dreaded "Napkin of Shame."

My face contorted in a spasm of dread, but it was too late.  Moments before, half a quenelle of foie clung to the bottom of my spoon, fighting a losing battle against gravity before plummeting to the table, its langoustine cream and quail jelly oozing brownly onto what was once an immaculate white tablecloth.

There I was, in one of the world's greatest restaurants, having just marked myself as a yokel while trying to savour every last bite of chef Heston Blumenthal's landmark cuisine.  And to make matters worse, I'd lost half of my foie. 

I blamed my spoon.  I blamed the hollowed-out sphere-on-a-pedestal serving bowl.  The damn thing resembles a ball chair, for crying out loud, and aren't they designed to deliberately obscure what's in them?  In short, I blamed everything but me.

Ah, the Napkin of Shame, that bane of every fine diner's existence and perhaps the most peculiar creation of the rarefied world of Michelin-starred dining.  In that realm, perfection is the goal.  That means more than just flawless food; it includes polished silver, service that anticipates needs, and, of course, lily-white tablecloths.

To that end, high-end restaurants keep any number of arrows in their quiver.  The most obvious tool is a table crumber, or, as we yokels like to call them, "table swiffers."  But it's just a curved piece of metal that scoops up stray crumbs and bits.  That's kids' stuff.

For really big messes only the Napkin of Shame will do.

Our first run in with the Napkin of Shame occurred last year at New York's Jean-Georges during a dinner with Sue and Ryan, coincidentally the same friends who joined us on our visit to The Fat Duck.  Sue was eager to share a delicious ravioli dressed in a vibrant green herb pesto. Unfortunately, while exchanging forkfuls with me, a piece of ravioli fell, and, given the size of the resulting stain, apparently somersaulted across the table.

We were mortified.  "J'accuse!" was its powerful, silent message. "These people don't know how to use a fork and knife!"  At moments like this, I feel like I can hear the unvoiced judgments of fellow diners: "Taco Bell is around the corner, buddy.  Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."

And yet there I was, in the middle of a dazzling meal at The Fat Duck, staring down at yet another stain.

Ah, but what a meal:

Setting foot inside The Fat Duck is a thrill.  The minuscule dining room sits on the ground floor of a classic English cottage, so the ceilings are low and exposed wood beams frame the space.  Sunday lunch means a naturally lit dining room and, for our visit, the chance to wile away a typically overcast, and at times rainy, British day.  The room looks remarkably normal (well, "three star normal") for the scene of a decidedly not normal meal, one that plays with preparations, flavours, and presentations.

The meal began with drama: a small cart arrived at our table, a dense contrail of vapour marking its path.  Before turning his attention to the liquid nitrogen, our server spritzed the air with lemon essence, prompting each of us to spontaneously close our eyes, tilt our heads skyward, and grin in that way comforting smells compel us to do.  The connection between smell and emotion is obvious, but only recently have daring chefs like Blumenthal begun exploiting that link.  Our server then 'poached' dollops of light and refreshing green tea and lime mousse, turning them over and over in the liquid nitrogen, before presenting each of us with a 'meringue' sprinkled with a dash of finely powdered green tea.

Palates cleansed, we moved on to that rarest of courses: deception on a plate.  For our second dish we were each given two unadorned squares of jelly, one red and one orange.  Our server told us that if we chose the red, we would learn the answer to the question, What is The Matrix?, if we chose the orange, our lives would carry on as before but with no memory of our dining experience.  Of course, I could be misremembering the whole thing.  It could be that our server, grinning like a Cheshire cat, told us to "start with the orange then switch to the beetroot."  Thanks to a lifetime of conditioning, we all reached for the orange-coloured square first and were shocked to taste something slightly sweet and a bit vegetal.  I, for one, was unsure what I'd just tasted.  Then we tried the red jelly, which tasted powerfully acidic, like... a blood orange.  Aha!  So the first square was actually golden beet.  This was the dining equivalent of taking that discombobulating first step on an escalator that's not moving (who knew the Japanese have a name for it?).

Two other dishes stand out for the way they tinker with expectations, though neither relies on outright deceit.  Pommery grain mustard ice cream with red cabbage gazpacho straddles the line between savoury and sweet.  I liked it, though I don't think it was a winner at our table.  The gazpacho had a lovely acidity and hearty texture that contrasted the creamy, grainy ice cream and the crunchy brunoise of cucumber.  Likewise, hot and cold iced tea made us laugh out loud with delight.  The tea itself tasted much like the lemony sweet tea I remember from our barbeque trip to Memphis, but this was way more fun.  The drink starts off very warm but then as you near the end of the glass it suddenly gets very cold.  It goes from soothing to refreshing in the blink of an eye, and it tastes great the whole time.

Blumenthal's greatest talent, in my opinion, is his ability to turn his diners' nostalgia into the centrepiece of his meals.  Almost every dish on the tasting menu features childhood faves groomed to the level of haute cuisine, though sometimes the efforts go a little too far.  No one expects an ice cream cone in such a setting, but there was Mrs. Marshall's Margaret cornet: apple ice cream with ginger granita in a dainty little cone.  It's my nominee for most disappointing course, but only soulless automatons don't smile when handed an ice cream cone.  Two other trips down memory lane fell short: the pine sherbet fountain, a novel palate cleanser that substitutes a vanilla pod for the traditional licorice stick, just doesn''t impress; and a plate of petit fours featuring a promising mandarin aerated chocolate that sounded like a sybaritic cross between a Jaffa Cake and an Aero that left me hankering for, well, a Jaffa Cake or an Aero instead.

I did write, however, that Blumenthal's ability to tweak our nostalgia is his greatest talent because there were far more masterpieces than flops.  Take parsnip cereal.  It's presented in one of those single serving-sized cereal boxes that calls to mind childhood trips to the grocery store.  I remember pestering my father for six-packs of them as we wandered the aisles of our neighbourhood Loblaws, devouring the good cereals (you know, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Corn Pops) within days, then waiting for the healthy, "bad" cereals to die a slow death in our cupboard.  Parsnip cereal merits inclusion in the pantheon of good cereals.  It reminds me of Frosted Flakes both in shape and texture, and though the sweetness is tame by comparison, the mild parsnip flavour and crunchiness are lovely.  This is a marvelous trip down memory lane.

Just like The Fat Duck's signature snail porridge.  Now we know why people discuss it in reverential tones.  The porridge has the look and texture of a risotto, but with a wonderfully grainy, oaty flavour that works perfectly with the herb pesto, snails, and thin shavings of fennel that accompany it.  The texture is dreamy as well -- the creamy, risotto-like mouthfeel of the oats offers a little chew that complements the delicacy of the snails and the almost imperceptible crunch of the fennel.  It's the porridge I wish I could wake up to every morning.

If manipulating two breakfast dishes works so well, why not try a third, right?  Nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream with pain perdu, stands out for me as one of my two favourite courses.  This dish is finished tableside, with the server wheeling a copper bowl to the table, cracking some eggs stored in a Fat Duck egg carton into it, then pouring in liquid nitrogen and stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon.  The eggs are actually filled with an ice cream base, and the egg ice cream is served a little over-frozen, so the finished ice cream clumps into little clusters that resemble overcooked scrambled eggs.  As good as the ice cream and micro-thin strip of crispy bacon were, the best part of this dish is the unforgettable pain perdu.  This French toast is actually given a thin, burnt sugar top, like a crème brûlée.  It is awesome, and the flavours mingle wonderfully together.

If the faux egg "packaging" and mini-cereal box represent Exhibits A and B in the case for The Fat Duck's exceptional use of presentation, Exhibit C is a no-brainer: I may have railed against the foie's ball-on-a-pedestal serving dish, but the first part of this course made our jaws drop: oak-flavoured breath strips (they even arrive in those flip-lid containers used for Listerine pocket packs) served on a wooden box-cum-platform packed with lush moss.  After depositing the wooden rectangle in front of us, our server poured hot water on the moss, unleashing a wave of vapour that cascaded onto the table.  I can't think of a more impressive presentation. 

If only the entire course were as unequivocally dazzling.  The oak moss strip has a very faint, very pleasant woodsy taste, and we devoured the toast points topped with black truffle and tiny little half moons of radish.  Both were awesome.  Pairing truffle and oak is a stroke of genius; it's another one of those circumstances where two organisms that share a close relationship in nature just happen to complement each other on the plate as well.  Where this course struggled -- and not just because it made me sully my space -- was the jelly of quail, which sits beneath the langoustine cream and a quenelle of foie parfait.  We were instructed to try and get a little bit of each element in every bite, and I did, but the Marmite notes of the jelly overwhelm everything else.

The quail jelly was the first and last time I didn't enjoy the taste of a dish, though there were a couple of instances where I was underwhelmed by texture.  An oyster on the half shell is always a good start to a dish, except when a passion fruit jelly traps that oyster in much the same way carbonite imprisoned Han Solo.  The acidity of the passion fruit complements the oysters nicely, as do two small shards of caramel and a bud or two of lavender, but overall the jelly detracts from the dish.  There's no textural contrast between the two main elements, just the same squooshy texture.  As for the roast foie gras "benzaldehyde,"  it was topped with a sprinkling of parmesan and accompanied by a smear of creamy almond gel and thick, luscious cherry gel, a small cherry, and three tiny cubes of amaretto jelly.  I enjoyed it, but I thought the texture of the foie was a little too wobbly like jello when it should have been buttery, though the amaretto jelly was superb and all the elements worked nicely with the main component.

One last complaint before I heap fawning praise on the whole experience: I know many consider the salmon poached in liquorice gel with artichoke, vanilla mayonaisse and 'Manni' olive oil a signature dish, but it doesn't quite work for me.  I love the mix of flavours -- I've had vanilla and salmon before, and I think vanilla pairs beautifully with most seafood -- but there's just too much fat in this dish.  The salmon, for one, feels like it's been poached in low temperature oil, which adds a certain fatty mouthfeel.  Beyond that, the vanilla mayo, though marvelous, adds yet another layer of fat to the dish, as does the generous swirl of olive oil.  The only real acidity on the plate are little flecks of grapefruit (these are the individual components of the fruit, and I think they're extracted by freezing segments in liquid nitrogen, then breaking them down using a rolling pin), but that's just nowhere near enough to create the balance inherent in any great dish.

Enough nitpicking, however, too much went too well for that.  Like an astonishing ballotine of Anjou pigeon with black pudding 'Made to Order,' pickling brine and spiced juices.  The pigeon was cooked blue and required only the barest flick of the knife to slice.  What makes this dish a masterpiece, however, is the black pudding, which resembles a perfect hollandaise in texture, but adds a concentrated, gamey note that complements the flavour profile of the pigeon perfectly.

Good as the pigeon may be, 'Sound of the Sea' defies superlatives. A mini-seascape of edible foam and sand strewn with shellfish and seaweed resting on a glass platform set atop a sandbox, this dish is presented alongside a conch shell with an iPod nestled inside it.  Diners listen to a soundtrack of ocean waves lapping against the shore and seagulls squawking while devouring the habitat set before them (if only eating this dish weren't a metaphor for what we're actually doing to the oceans!).  I can take or leave the soundtrack (seagulls sound rather harsh to me), but the dish itself ranks among the best I've ever eaten.  I love the tapioca maltodextrin sand and the soy lecithin sea foam, but a couple of elements really stood out: the 'sand' includes wonderfully crunchy bits of deep fried baby eels, and there are wonderfully salty tendrils of seaweed in the dish that add umami and a wonderfully subtle hint of the sea.  This dish really is unforgettable and the hype is justified.  We scraped our plates clean on that course.

Actually, we scraped our plates clean on every course.  And drained our glasses, too.  After four hours at the table we stumbled out of The Fat Duck and wandered just a few doors down to size up the experience over a pint at Heston Blumenthal's pub, the Hinds Head (try the Devils on Horseback).  Two months earlier, I'd forced myself out of bed at five in the morning on a statutory holiday and, exhausted, juggled two cell phones and a landline in an effort to be one of the lucky few to spend an exorbitant amount of money on one meal.  It worked, and, yes, it was worth it.

As for the Napkin of Shame, it never emerged.  But there will be other opportunities, I'm sure.  Why just last week I requested a reservation at el Bulli for the 2009 season, thus raising the possibility that I may yet earn my second Napkin of Shame at the best restaurant in the world.

Now that would be embarrassing.

Our Fat Duck tasting menu:

Foaming at the mouth, Part II: el Bulli's tortilla de patatas Marc Singla foam

For the longest time, I was convinced that only the French know how to make a good omelette.  Rachel and I had eaten our share of Spanish tortillas and Italian frittatas, and found them wanting: thick rounds of leaden, overcooked eggs with a consistency more reminiscent of a custard forgotten in the oven than an old world culinary classic.  The French insist an omelette should be thin, light, and cooked just long enough to firm one side while leaving the other creamy.

The French are right.

Then we visited Cal Pep, one of Barcelona's most famous tapas joints, and discovered a tortilla that puts omelettes to shame.  There, cooks scoop a mixture of potato, chorizo, onion and golden, creamy eggs into sizzling hot, high-sided small pans. One flip and a minute or two later, they slide a thick, lightly caramelized disc about the size of a large hamburger patty onto a plate, slather the top with allioli, a garlicky mayonnaise better known by its French name, aïoli, and await the delighted squeals of ravenous customers.

What makes this tortilla so special is that, unlike its Iberian and Italian cousins, it offers that magical mix of cooked and creamy egg that makes a French omelette superior.  Cut open Cal Pep's tortilla, and, underneath the lightly caramelized crust, lies a core of warm, not-quite-set egg.  Allioli complements the unctuousness of the interior while nuggets of spicy chorizo and potato add body and flavour.  It's enough to make me forget France forever.

The tortilla's iconic stature in Spanish gastronomy means that Ferran Adria can't resist riffing on it,  even if he's got to crib from another chef to do it.  El Bulli's evolution of the hot 'tortilla de patatas Marc Singla' foam from el Bulli: 1998-2002 deliciously deconstructs the standard dish.  Raw yolks and a barely cooked sabayon mean the egg portion of this tortilla is a golden syrup that flows on the palate, and Adria opts for a tangle of caramelized onions for their complex savoury-sweet bite.

Yet it's the potatoes that grab your attention.  Gone are the chunks of spud, replaced instead by an almost overwhelmingly rich foam made by boiling potatoes, enriching them with cream and olive oil, then blending and pouring the mixture into an iSi Gourmet Whip charged with nitrous oxide.  The Gourmet Whip is unique because it can be heated, so after spooning caramelized onion into the bottom of a martini glass and gilding it with some raw egg yolk and sabayon, the dish is crowned by a layer of piping hot potato.

Despite my misgivings -- blending potatoes is normally a recipe for glue, not haute cuisine -- the foam is spectacular.  It has a noticeably buttery taste even though it has no butter, and the texture is, not unexpectedly, light but still substantive enough to form the backbone of the dish.  My only complaint, and here, yes, I'm trying to have it both ways, is that I miss some of the complexity of flavour and texture that comes from the caramelized exterior of Cal Pep's tortilla.

I've tried to reproduce Cal Pep's tortilla at home, but I'm not quite there yet.  Problem number one is that my non-existent Catalan makes translating the recipe difficult (someone help me, please).  Problem number two is that I have yet to find a pan suitable for the job.  My results so far have been good but not stellar: a respectable crust, but a slightly overcooked centre.  No matter, I can always turn to el Bulli's version, or, failing that, Rachel assures me I prepare a mean French omelette.

Nutella, not just for the bedroom anymore, Part IV: Not just Nutella anymore

I am a bad flyer.  Just ask my wife.  Or my grandparents.  Or that poor man on his honeymoon who had to sit beside me while I turned green on a flight from London to Malta.  I'm better now than I used to be, but it hasn't come easy.  My pre-flight routine consists of Gravol, lorazepam, bargaining with God ("Please, just let me survive this flight, and I promise to never, ever fly again!") and long, meandering walks around departure terminals exorcising nervous energy.

Sometimes those strolls lead to interesting discoveries.  Last fall, for instance, as I frittered away a few hours at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport awaiting the first leg of our journey back to Toronto, I wandered into a Giorgio Armani boutique.  My eyes were quickly drawn away from the clothes to a little glass cabinet sparsely populated with jars of food.  Intrigued, I edged closer and noticed that one of the jars contained a chocolate spread.  Chocolate spread does not, in and of itself, interest me, but, deep in Nutella's heartland, I hoped this one stylish vessel implied the presence of the holy grail: chocolate-hazelnut spread.

Sadly, it does not.  The Armani Dolci line includes chocolates, chocolate spread, and jams, but not Giorgio's interpretation of my beloved Nutella.  Recent experience, however, has me wondering what's come over the world of spreadable indulgences.  As a child, chocolate plus hazelnut equaled Nutella, and that was that.  But over the past few years there's been an explosion in both high- and low-end pretenders to the throne.  As an adult, it's both rewarding and perplexing to have so many choices, so I decided to put the four options in my pantry to the test. 

I first wrote about Slitti's Riccosa chocolate-hazelnut spread for the Toronto Life Eating + Drinking Guide after stumbling upon it at Soma, one of Toronto's finest chocolatiers.  At $22 for a 370 gram jar, it's not cheap, but, for my money at least, it's the best chocolate-hazelnut spread in existence.  The secret is really no secret at all, as a quick look at the ingredients list reveals that piedmontese hazelnuts are the primary ingredient and that, unlike every other available spread, there's no vegetable oil or modified palm oil to be found; it's cocoa butter instead.  This probably explains Riccosa's only fault: it's a little stiff at room temperature.  The jar states that it must be served between 18 and 20 Celsius for this reason, but I've found that even that range is a little low.  It's all moot anyway, because when slathered on hot toast the rich, roasted hazelnut flavour of this product shines.  Soma also carries Gianera, a dark chocolate version of this spread, as well as Nocciolata, a milk chocolate version with crunchy bits of hazelnut.

If Riccosa comes first, then Nutella isn't far behind.  I've outlined my devotion to Nutella many times before, so it goes without saying that I think it's a wonderful product.  The best part of testing it against so many other chocolate-hazelnut spreads is that I now have a much better idea of its strengths and weaknesses.  After sitting down with four friends, four jars, and countless spoons and tasting back and forth for the better part of a half hour, it's now obvious to me that Nutella's biggest weakness is that it tastes very little of hazelnuts.  It compensates for this by loading up on sweetness and by having the finest consistency -- superbly creamy and luscious -- of any of these spreads.

Beyond Riccosa and Nutella, there's a noticeable decline in quality.  I bought a jar of President's Choice Chocolate Hazelnut Spread with low expectations.  This spread exceeds them, but it still fails to live up to the Nutella standard.  Though creamy, the mouthfeel is a little thin, and the taste, though certainly bigger on hazelnuts, seems a little off -- more hazelnut skins than hazelnuts.

The only unquestionable disappointment out of all four spreads is the version by Cacao Sampaka, the Barcelona-based chocolatier founded by Albert Adria, pastry chef of el Bulli.  Cacao Sampaka's version has an inescapable off-taste reminiscent of plastic, and a nasty tendency to separate such that every time I open the already vegetable oil soaked jar, a puddle of oil sits atop the spread waiting to be stirred back in.  Hardly appetizing.

Not that I've lost hope that my quest for newer and better chocolate spreads won't yield more wonderful surprises like Riccosa.  We plan to return to Italy and Spain later this year where, hopefully, we'll happen upon another artisanal chocolatier who can't shake memories of a favourite childhood treat.  And maybe, just maybe, that chance discovery will occur on another fruitful, nervous walk around a departure terminal.

Long may you Rome: four days in the Eternal City, the inspiration for homemade guanciale

With days of feasting on rare regional delicacies behind us and the prospect of a transcontinental flight and the accompanying return to "the usual" ahead, it's no wonder Rachel and I approach the final meal of our trips to Rome with a hint of dread.  But after four visits to the Eternal City, including one this past fall, we've learned to deal with the pain of the "last supper" by curing our depression with a bowl of carbonara at Pommidoro (Piazza dei Sanniti, 44).  Rome's greatest contribution to comfort food is simplicity itself: strands of al dente spaghetti dressed in a luscious sauce of egg yolks, grated pecorino cheese, lots of ground black pepper, and cubes of succulently salty and crispy guanciale.

Ah, guanciale.  For some, prosciutto or jamon represent the pinnacle of porcine pleasure, for others, that means bacon.  For me, pig nirvana is the remarkable guanciale at Pommidoro.  Guanciale is pig's jowl, a rich, fatty, full-flavoured cut of meat, cured in salt and spices.  Romans use it in much the same way we use bacon or some other Italians use pancetta.  The key difference between bacon and guanciale is that the former is usually salt-cured and smoked, while the latter is just salt-cured with herbs and spices.  I adore the spaghetti alla carbonara at Pommidoro because their guanciale has a crispy exterior, meaty interior, and a taste that reminds me strongly of the Colonel's secret blend of herbs and spices.  Say what you will, I love that flavour.

And guanciale is just one of many specialties that distinguish Roman cuisine.  Our first task after an early morning arrival was to set out for a breakfast featuring one of the world's great breads.  Pizza bianca isn't that much different from any other leavened yeast bread -- it's nothing more than flour, a little sugar, water, yeast, olive oil and salt -- but good pizza bianca is an experience not soon forgotten.  This flatbread features a light, pillowy crumb under a crispy, olive oil and sea salt gilded crust.  There's an article in Jeffrey Steingarten's book, It Must've Been Something I Ate, in which he froths over the pizza bianca at Antico Forno in the Campo de' Fiori, an enthusiasm he apparently shares with another notable food writer, Amanda Hesser.  Rachel and I enjoy its pizza bianca.  It's exceptionally light and has a wonderfully delicate texture, but we prefer the pizza bianca from the bakery just steps from our hotel.  Panificio Fagiani Ubaldo (Via Varese, 36) makes a far denser bread, but it features more olive oil and flakes of wonderfully crunchy salt, and it has a noticeably mineralized taste that we love.  Both dazzle, but a bread that combines the texture of the pizza of the Antico Forno with the flavour of the Panificio Fagiani Ubaldo would be transcendent.

Rome in the fall also means puntarelle, a crunchy, slightly bitter variety of chicory that is a regional, seasonal delicacy.  Romans typically serve them as a salad dressed with anchovy, garlic, olive oil, and vinegar.  Rachel and I tried our first and best bowl at Dal Cavalier Gino (Vicolo Rosini, 4).  The mixture of anchovy, garlic, oil and the crunchy texture of this bitter green call to mind a classic Caesar salad.  I would kill to get my hands on some, but I've never seen them in Toronto.  Not only are they hard to find, they're a pain in the ass to prepare.  We watched teams of greengrocers in the Campo de' Fiori labour over a time-consuming process that involves cleaning, cutting, shredding, and soaking a plant that resembles an asparagus-producing weed. 

The most pleasant surprise of our trip was a dazzling lunch at Palatium, a stylish enoteca run by the regional government to showcase Latium's remarkable food and wine.  We started with a selection of local salumi, such as finnochiona, a peppery sausage with a noticeable dose of fennel seed.  But the star of the meal was a stupendous cacio e pepe pasta featuring fresh, golden tonnarelli (square-cut spaghetti) made with locally sourced organic flour and caciocavallo cheese, a southern-Italian specialty, that, when aged, adds a salty, parmesan-like bite to dishes.  Rachel took one bite of my perfect pasta, then asked me to trade it straight up for her less than perfect, but still excellent, amatriciana.  I did it, but the words "cacio e pepe" have now become a convenient shorthand for "you owe me" around our house.  Dessert was an orange and ricotta tart with a little drizzle of melted dark chocolate and some diced peaches.  Surprise, surprise, this was no ordinary ricotta.  This was ricotta romana, a sheep's milk cheese so precious it's been given a protected DOP status.  It also makes one hell of a tart -- light and creamy, with a subtle but noticeable orange taste.  The only problem with Palatium is the service, which is maddeningly slow even by Italian standards.

Pizza bianca, puntarelle, Palatium.  We miss them all, so we don't want to add our favourite Roman delight, guanciale, to that list.  But despite the growing popularity of traditional Roman dishes that require it, like carbonara and amatriciana, guanciale remains scarce in North America.  Quality bacon or pancetta make a decent substitute, but after finding Mario Batali's recipe for homemade guanciale in The Babbo Cookbook and motivated by our recent visit, I decided it was time to make some myself.

The biggest obstacle was sourcing the pig cheeks.  After several weeks, I finally managed to get my hands on some from Cumbrae's (the same butcher who helped us find lamb brains), one of Toronto's finest butchers.  Floppy and fatty, and still covered with a layer of whisker-dappled skin, uncured cheeks bear little resemblance to the marvelous epicurean delight they eventually become.  After a week covered in kosher salt, thyme, and black pepper, followed by three weeks dangling from pieces of string in the fridge, our two cheeks metamorphosed into a marvelous treat.  The skin had hardened into a leathery carapace, but the flesh beneath had darkened and firmed until it resembled the fattiest of bacons.

We used it first in a delicious risotto, sautéing lardons of guanciale until they were crisp outside but still supple inside, then using the drippings in the pan to wilt dandelion greens.  This guanciale astonishes.  Without the often overbearing smokiness of some bacon, Batali's cured pig cheeks taste overwhelmingly porky, but with a marvelous saltiness and mild peppery and herbal notes.  Texturally, guanciale dominates bacon, which, especially when sliced, is only ever crispy or soft; guanciale offers both at once, popping under your teeth.

Though delightful in risotto, the pinnacle of guanciale achievement remains spaghetti alla carbonara.  Despite the simplicity of the ingredients, carbonara is actually a remarkably difficult dish to execute well.  The trick, as I see it, lies in the sauce.  North American recipes often call for the addition of cream.  This is a form of culinary heresy I detest.  The sauce requires nothing more than raw egg yolks, which add plenty of richness on their own, and the magic of pasta water.  Of course, adding hot water to raw eggs demands some skill, unless the desired outcome is scrambled eggs carbonara.  I posted our first carbonara recipe two years ago, but I've updated it here.  The only real change is that I now use a bit more pasta water, both in the egg yolks and in the pan with the fat leftover from cooking the guanciale. 

And though it's not that last meal at Pommidoro on a chilly fall day after strolling through the Eternal City, our spaghetti alla carbonara with homemade guanciale is a delicious way to rekindle fond memories -- the Bernini sculptures at the Galleria Borghese, the awe-inspiring dome of the Pantheon, and the Baroque splendour of the Trevi Fountain -- from a kitchen many thousands of kilometres away.

Spaghetti alla carbonara

There are a couple of keys to producing a creamy sauce, not scrambled eggs:
1. Use room temperature eggs
2. Temper the beaten eggs with a bit of the pasta water
3. Try to add the egg mixture to a warm, not hot, pan.

500 grams spaghetti or bucatini
4 room temperature egg yolks plus one whole egg, beaten
200 grams guanciale, pancetta, or best bacon cut into 1.5 cm (approx 3/4 inch) lardons
30 grams (approx. 3/4 cup), finely grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano
pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil
pasta water

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  When water boils, add a generous amount of salt.

Heat a sauté pan over medium heat.  Add olive oil and guanciale, and sauté until outside is crispy but inside remains slightly chewy, approximately 5-7 minutes.  Drain desired amount of fat from pan (guanciale fat tastes good, so I try to leave it all in the pan).

Place spaghetti in boiling water.  Prepare as per package instructions.

When there are five minutes remaining in the pasta cooking time, add 125 mL (approx. 1/2 cup) of the starchy pasta cooking water to the guanciale fat in the sauté pan.  Return pan to medium-high heat.  Reduce the mixture by at least half, stirring occasionally until the mixture has emulsified.

Add pepper to taste to beaten eggs.  Slowly add 70 mL (a generous 1/4 cup) of the pasta water to the egg mixture.  Do not add quickly or the eggs will scramble.

When spaghetti is al dente, lower the heat under the sauté pan to low.  Drain the spaghetti and add it to the sauté pan.  Slowly add the beaten eggs to the noodles, tossing constantly (I find a good set of tongs work best) and adding more pasta water, if necessary, to loosen the sauce.  Add pecorino and more pepper, if desired.

Serve promptly with additional pecorino and pepper.

The 'Lona Rangers: four wondrous days in Barcelona

It's seven in the evening, too early even for locals with babies to consider supper.  They will show up, but not for an hour or so.  For now it's just me, Rachel, and another couple drinking at the bar.  I'm wearing my usual natty attire: khakis, a t-shirt, and a backpack that confirms, if confirmation were needed, that I am a tourist.

So be it.  It's the price we pay for visiting Barcelona and ensuring our meal at Bar Inopia, Albert Adria's tapas bar, lives up to expectations.  Sure, we could visit two or three hours later, dressed to the nines (okay, maybe I can't do that), for the more authentic experience: fighting with the Saturday night crowd for someone, anyone's attention.  But to hell with that.  We want the chance to interact with the bartender, to get a feel for what we're eating.

In that sense, our gambit pays off.  Our barkeep's brown hair and beard convince me we're being looked after by Kenny Loggins' Catalan doppelganger.  But I'm not complaining.  For the next ninety minutes this man tolerates my many questions with the patience of Job, and even greets my queries with a few wonderful recommendations.

Eating in Barcelona ranks as one of life's greatest pleasures -- actually, given the wonders of the city, so does starving in Barcelona -- and Bar Inopia's no exception.  We whet our appetites with a few simple plates:  "Air" bread with tomato and baccala, impossibly light toast with a rich tomato confit and cod so juicy it's hard to believe it was ever dried; ventresca de atun, tuna belly with a wonderfully meaty taste, more tomato confit, and a generous, but perfectly balanced dusting of sea salt; and a handful of anchovy dishes, including a boqueron topped with more anchovy, a preparation that is really just fishy fish garnished with a little more fishy fish.  Of course, if I could buy preserved fish as succulent as the salt-packed varieties regularly served in tapas bars across the Iberian peninsula, I'd do the same thing, too.  The only dish we don't enjoy is the mixed olive plate, as none of the olives strike our fancy, and one of which amazes me for its distinctly root beer-like taste.

Why stop when you're on a roll, right?  The second wave of dishes includes an ensaladilla rusa, a tuna, mayo, and potato salad with a little red pepper.  More anchovies arrive, but this time perched atop preserved artichokes.  Then, the dish for which I will beg on my deathbed: tiny deep fried fish.  Pelaya, to be exact, which, if my research is correct, is Atlantic spotted flounder.  These little fish remind me of potato chips, only better. Given their oval shape, very generous dose of sea salt, and not-quite-paper-thinness, the comparison is apt.  They have a wonderfully light crunch.  After devouring a plate of them while polishing off a beer, I immediately order another.

"Are you sure you don't want to try a different fish?" asks the bartender.  "Salmoneta, is a little thicker and has slightly fishier taste."  What else could I do but accept?  I don't want to suggest I now regret that decision, but let's just say when I think of the one that got away, it will be a dozen pelaya.  Which is not to say that salmoneta isn't good -- though given it's orangey-pink colouring and shape, these finger-sized red mullet strongly resemble a goldfish -- it just fails to meet the standard of its predecessor.

Our meal at Bar Inopia was a wonderful experience, but it's just the tip of the iceberg in a city emerging as one of the world's great culinary destinations.  The quality of the tapas justifies the line of customers patiently sipping cañas, tiny glasses of beer, while waiting an hour for a seat at Cal Pep's diner-style counter.  Our meal begins with a pile of salty, deep fried pebrots de padron, slightly sweet, mini-green peppers; the most perfect clams cooked with morsels of ham; and a dish that must be inspired by a typical North American breakfast: foie gras sausage and white beans drizzled with a maple syrup reduction.  Cal Pep's fried pelaya fail to meet the standard set by Bar Inopia -- too greasy, not enough salt -- but all is forgiven after one bite of their mesmerizing tortilla, truita trempera (click here for the recipe in Catalan), a thick, golden pillow filled with chorizo, potato, onion, and still runny egg.  What sets this omelette apart is the slather of allioli, garlic mayonnaise, that crowns it, and transforms an already superb omelette into something ethereal.  We finish our meal with the dense, silky custard of crema catalana, the region's nutmeg-inflected answer to crème brûlée.  For photos of the sausage, clam, and tortilla dishes, click here.

Of course, one need not set foot in Barcelona's bars and restaurants to capture glimpses of the city's vibrant food culture.  The city is home to one of the world's great food markets, La Boqueria.  Rachel and I spent the better part of a morning wandering past rows of vendors hawking the most beautiful fruits, meats, and fish, though only after enjoying second helpings of the most addictive chick pea dish ever at Bar Pinotxo -- a delightful muddle, cigrons butifarra, that includes crumbled black sausage, raisins, onions, pine nuts, and parsley -- one of the tapas stands scattered throughout the premises.  Beyond breakfast, my memories of our market visit are crowded with visions of countless types of dirt-caked mushrooms, containers overflowing with yards of tripe, and fishmongers chatting casually while gutting and cleaning the day's catch with impossibly large blades.

Then there's the chocolate.  On our first trip to Barcelona, we stumbled upon Cacao Sampaka, another Albert Adria venture, but one more closely related to his roots as el Bulli's pioneering pastry chef.  This small chain of artisanal chocolate shops showcases many of the chocolate creations Adria developed at the restaurant, including some of the flavours we featured in our el Bulli chocolate sampler post.  Adria's bonbons are good, but they fail to match the intense flavours and luscious textures achieved by Oriol Balaguer, a man quickly emerging as one of the world's great pastry chefs.  This is actually a case of the student overtaking the master, because Balaguer spent seven years at el Bulli before venturing out on his own.  His tiny shop, with its sleek automatic doors and ultra-modern displays, seems better suited to haute couture than ganache, but Balaguer (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bond henchman, Emile Locque) has a magical ability to distill flavours and textures into his chocolates-- be it passion fruit, yuzu, or even corn nuts -- that Adria cannot match.

Barcelona's attractiveness extends well beyond food.  I was first drawn to the city by a love for the architecture of Antoni Gaudí, whose most brilliant creations -- for me, at least, the Casa Batlló and the Sagrada Familia -- twist natural forms into awe inspiring spaces bathed in light.  There's more, of course: the charm of La Rambla, the bustling, tree-lined mall, choked with pedestrians, vendors, and street performers; strolling the boardwalk in Barceloneta; and Montjuïc, the enormous park that looks out over the city while simultaneously offering a green refuge from its excesses.  Well, at least to some.  I know we haven't enjoyed any part of Barcelona -- not the architecture, nor the chocolate,  and certainly not the tiny deep fried fish -- to excess yet. 

Foaming at the mouth: Wylie Dufresne, Guy Rubino, and the future of molecular gastronomy

Had enough yet?  Can't wait to see the last of foams, spheres, airs, and the countless other "gimmicks" at the heart of molecular gastronomy?

If you answered 'Yes' to those questions, you're not alone.

Chris Nuttall-Smith, outgoing food editor of Toronto Life, knows his food and has eaten more than his fair share of great and ghastly meals, and he's fed up.  During a conversation earlier this summer, he professed to being "tired of molecular gastronomy."  When I asked him recently if I could use his quote for this post, he not only agreed, he elaborated:

If you really got me on a roll, I'd say:

'I find it so tedious, and wankerish and precious. I used to roll my eyes when food writers said this kind of thing. C'mon, I'd think. Give the newbies a chance. But then two years passed and every hack chef on the continent discovered foams. Enough, fuck. And how is it "cutting edge" when chefs use transglutaminase to glue pieces of meat together? Weren't they doing that at Tyson Foods in 1986?  Really. Can I just get something that tastes good and was made with a bit of integrity instead?'

Yes. I'd love it if you'd use that.

Me too.  Agree or disagree, the man writes good copy.

I'm glad he didn't mince words, because his comment provides some context for two other experiences I enjoyed this summer.  The first, dinner at wd-50, Wylie Dufresne's landmark molecular gastronomy restaurant on Manhattan's Lower East Side, offers a taste of what many naysayers loathe most about this new approach to food: unconventional flavour pairings, oodles of obscure chemicals, and a penchant for deconstructing traditional dishes.

Rachel and I visited with another couple, our friends Ryan and Sue, and, for the most part, the meal was a hit.  The best dish of the night was Dufresne's take on french onion soup: two spheres of gruyere-flavoured liquid floating in a pool of beef broth -- it's comfort food with flair and imagination.  What impresses most about this dish aren't the spheres, however, it's that delectable broth, a staple of classic Western cuisine crafted with obvious skill.  Dufresne may no longer work in Jean-Georges' kitchen, but he brings those same standards to his own.

The delicious riffs on comfort food don't stop there.  Pizza pebbles with pepperoni and shiitake dazzle while eliciting laughs of joy and amazement.  Pop one of these balls into your mouth, and it immediately crumbles into a sandy powder with a texture and taste eerily similar to that of Combos, the pretzel snack that "cheeses your hunger away."  This is no accident. Some may find it absurd, even offensive, to pay good money for the taste of Combos on a tasting menu, but I think it's a stroke of genius -- laughter's a reaction I wish chefs would encourage more often, especially in fine dining restaurants that intimidate some diners as much as they delight others.

Not every dish on the twelve-course tasting menu tickled us as much as these two -- one in particular, a combination of surf clam, watermelon, and fermented black bean leaves me a little cold, mainly because I dislike the vaguely raunchy flavour of fermented beans paired with fresh clam -- but most of the rest combine form and flavour exceptionally well, two others especially: I'm not sure if lamb belly, black chick pea, and cherried cucumber is a great take on lamb or bacon, but the unexpected taste of cured meat mixed with the mild gaminess of lamb makes for an unforgettable dish.  Dufresne plays with Jewish deli food (or a BLT, apparently) in a dish of thinly sliced pickled beef tongue with fried mayonnaise and tomato molasses.  wd-50 refines tongue to such an extent that the dish conjures images of pastrami, not offal (click here for the recipe).  And, yes, fried mayo is as delicious as it sounds, though I must confess to expecting a slightly thinner texture from the mayo.

Pastry chef Alex Stupak's desserts were every bit as good as the savoury courses they followed, with fried butterscotch pudding, mango, taro ice cream, and smoked macadamia the best of the lot.  This dish deftly balances hot and cold, and sweet, salty, and smoky.   Like mayo, pudding just gets better after a brief sojourn in hot fat.

To read someone else's take on our wd-50's tasting menu, and to see pictures of the dishes discussed above, click here.

Chris and Wylie approach food from two very different places: Wylie pushes boundaries and buttons; Chris yearns for quality ingredients cooked simply.  On the surface, it appears the stage has been set for a messy divorce between molecular gastronomy and traditional (dare I call it Slow?) food.  But are they really incompatible?

My experience writing The Dish for the October 2007 Toronto Life makes me think not.  Guy Rubino has carved a reputation as an elite chef by creating gorgeous, complex dishes that mingle Asian and Western techniques and ingredients at his Toronto restaurant, rain.  He's best known for his TV show, Made to Order, which focuses on the sumptuous dining experiences he and his brother, Michael, tailor to the desires of special clients.

What I find most fascinating about Rubino's style is that he frequently dips into the molecular toolbox to tweak his food.  I arrived curious to see how and why Rubino integrates this emerging culinary outlook into his dishes.  What I found left me convinced that Guy Rubino is a role model for the future of this cooking revolution.

I profiled a trio of preparations featuring bluefin tuna, wagyu beef, and tangerine.  Nuttall-Smith assigned me the piece specifically because Rubino uses transglutaminase in one element of the dish.  Transglutaminase -- also known as "meat glue" or "trans glam" amongst chefs -- is a naturally occurring enzyme that literally glues proteins together.  Take a chunk of beef, for example, spread a tiny bit of trans glam powder on it, and set another piece of meat, let's say chicken, on top.  Wrap the pieces in cling film, and let them rest briefly in the fridge.  When you pull them out, cow and clucker will be fused together in a permanent embrace.  If a tiny voice in your head is saying "Cool" right now, you're like me.

Rubino's trio is deceptively simple.  It includes a wagyu and bluefin tartare with tangerine gelée and tangerine foam; a strip of tangerine fruit leather encased in a coil of bluefin sashimi and dressed with tamari veal reduction, dehydrated ginger and wasabi; and a thick disc of seared, wagyu fat-encased bluefin loin finished with a tangerine teriyaki miso froth and a thin line of cilantro oil.  What struck me most is that transglutaminase is just the tip of the iceberg with this dish.  By my count, there are no fewer than six molecular gastronomy techniques in the three preparations: agar jellies the tangerine gelee; methylcellulose thickens the tangerine mousse; sodium alginate binds the fruit leather; soy lecithin emulsifies the teriyaki froth; xanthan gum stabilizes the cilantro oil; and, lest we forget the reason for my visit in the first place, transglutaminase binds the wagyu fat to the loin to add a little moisture and flavour.

The kicker, of course, is that Guy Rubino is not a molecular gastronomer.  He's simply a chef who recognizes that the methods refined by the likes of Homaro Cantu, Grant Achatz, and Wylie Dufresne can be put to use in any kitchen to improve the taste and texture of many dishes.  We've come to expect a restaurant to be "molecular gastronomy" in much the same way we used to insist restaurants be French, Japanese, or Italian, until a new generation of chefs blew that conceit to smithereens.  Molecular gastronomy is undergoing a similar transformation, shedding its niche status and emerging as a broadly used set of tools that help cooks enhance and reinterpret the foods they prepare regardless of their background.

As I see it, Nuttall-Smith, Dufresne, and Rubino -- or, put in more political terms, the conservative, the revolutionary, and the moderate -- are proxies for a broader debate in the culinary world over the role of molecular gastronomy in modern cuisine.  Each position has value, too.  I am constantly fascinated and amazed by culinary innovation, but I'm not blind to its excesses.  To the contrary, I've been forced to eat a few of them.  Some passionate, knowledgeable foodies, like Chris Nuttall-Smith, offer necessary resistance.  By challenging the relentless quest for innovation for innovation's sake, skeptics force chefs to ask the most important question of the dishes they produce, not merely "Is it good?" but "Is it better?"  The answer, sometimes, is "No."  Wylie Dufresne, on the other hand, pushes boundaries and buttons, forges new techniques, and discovers the ingredients of tomorrow.  He, and chefs like him, provide the necessary imagination that propels any creative venture such as cooking forward. 

Innovators must remember to ask one simple question:  "Can I make it better?"  And they often do.  Guy Rubino is the product of this dialectic, synthesizing the techniques he learns from chefs like Dufresne with incredible raw materials and his own culinary vision to produce a richer, juicier tuna loin or a more intense tangerine foam.  His food is by no means simple, but by probing the area between the extremes he promotes compromise and a promising future.

Vive le Québec livre! Au Pied de Cochon's pouding chomeur and our Montreal road trip

Choosing travel destinations based on cookbooks can seem foolish -- until you find the right cookbook, that is.  For me, one of those cookbooks is Au Pied de Cochon -- The Album.  After ogling it for a month and preparing the wonderful foie gras poutine recipe, Rachel and I decided to make the pilgrimage to la belle province for a meal at the source.  We just needed to find the opportunity.  So when it found us, in the form of our friends Jill and Rob, we packed our bags and thanked The Fates for giving us friends who are perpetually willing to venture near and far for good food.

For a restaurant praised by the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Gourmet, Au Pied de Cochon's dishes are surprisingly unrefined, and gratifyingly so.  Most reflect the traditions of pure laine quebecois and their descendants:  rustic and bold, devoid of pretension, yet elevated by the quality of the ingredients and the care taken in their preparation.  As an Album junkie, I arrived with a list as long as my arm of things I wanted to try.

Brain food: Mario Batali's lamb's brains ravioli

My first exposure to the glories of lamb offal was entirely accidental.  "Abbacchio con funghi," read the chef's recommendations at one of Rome's oldest restaurants, La Campana, and a succulent lamb chop or tender braised shank did seem like a perfect fall supper in the Eternal City.  Moreover, because of my almost non-existent knowledge of Italian at the time, I was tickled about having understood the Roman dialect word for lamb.

"Pride goes before a fall," they say, and I was about to learn my lesson.

The full name of the dish is actually "animelle di abbacchio con funghi."  I naively ignored that first word, dismissing it as nothing more than a minor detail.  This is Rome, however, a city that prides itself on its culinary artistry with the "quinto quarto," or "fifth quarter" of the animal, the collection of snouts, guts, brains, and tails that have been staples of the city's working class cuisine for millenia.

When my meal finally arrived, I couldn't help but notice the extensive network of ridges and crenelations running through my piece of lamb.  "Rachel," I muttered, "I think I've ordered brain."  Not quite, it turns out, but nestled within my pool of rich brown gravy and mushrooms lay a tender, plump lamb sweetbread.  I had a decision to make: suck it up, try it, and then reach an informed opinion, or take a mulligan and order something new.  My decision: eat first, ask questions later.  So I screwed up my courage and took a bite.  Not bad, really.  The texture was smooth and rich, pillowy like a dumpling, and the meat gravy superb.

Having finally eaten a sizable portion of my meal, I tried to ask our waiter what I was eating by tapping my temple while asking, "Dove?" -- the Italian word for "where" -- hoping he would understand the implication, which he did.  "Si," he confirmed.

I continued to eat more, though I didn't attack supper with my usual gusto.  Yes, even I -- gobbler of rabbit ears and glutton for horse fat --  get culinary cold feet.  I'd like to rationalize my anxiety by claiming fear of mad cow disease, but no lamb has ever been diagnosed with BSE and no case of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, the human equivalent, has ever been linked back to sheep.  No, my fears about eating lamb brains aren't about what's in the lamb's head.  It's about what's in mine.

Brain presents a big culinary problem for most of us.  It's squishy; when cooked, it's grey.  Both factors are a huge turn off.  But the bigger issue with brain, I think, stems from the unmistakable resemblance of an animal's brain to our own, and from the immense symbolic weight we place on that organ as the locus of thought and as the seat of the soul.  We rather easily disassociate ourselves from animal flesh, but we've all taken enough high school science classes or watched enough sci-fi and monster movies to recognize that a lamb's brain looks almost exactly like a miniaturized version of our own.  We recognize a little too much of ourselves in a brain.

I first tasted actual lamb's brains a few years ago at Babbo, Mario Batali's flagship New York restaurant.  Batali actively promotes cooking with offal, and his menus reflect his passion.  At Babbo, our server urged us to try the lamb brains francobolli -- postage stamps of fresh pasta stuffed with a mixture of poached brain, ricotta, sauteed onions, and a little seasoning, dressed with gently heated butter, some fresh sage, and a sprinkling of parmesan -- so I took the plunge.  I'm glad I did.  The brain's contribution is more texture -- a slightly creamy lusciousness -- then flavour, but the dish really does taste marvelous.

Of course, Batali does his best to make "the nasty bits" palatable to his patrons.  As others have already pointed out, he usually mixes offal into his dishes in small quantities, and it's probably no coincidence that the lamb's brains are hidden within a pasta envelope.  As they say: out of sight, out of mind.

It's an entirely different story when you're both diner and chef.  Any illusions are forgotten the instant you hold a chilled, slick brain in the palm of your hand.  No easy task given how difficult it is to find naturally raised lamb in Toronto.  The most pleasant surprise I received when preparing lamb brains is price -- they were free.  According to my butcher at Cumbrae's, no market exists for the product in Canada.  The next step, cleaning the brains, can hardly be described as pleasant.  For one, there were a few small chunks of skull wedged into the brains -- a by-product, no doubt, of extracting the brains from the skull using a saw -- and, for two, there's the pain-in-the-ass task of removing the outer membrane and blotches of congealed blood.

After soaking the brains overnight in a couple of changes of water to drain any remaining blood, the recipe, which I adapted from an identical recipe for calf's brains in The Babbo Cookbook, is entirely straightforward.  Rather than fuss over the pasta envelope, I prepared basic, square ravioli, not postage stamps with fancy edges.  The homemade dish, though less artfully presented, is every bit as good as the restaurant version.  The richness of the filling marries artfully with butter, flavours complemented by the sharp herbal note of sage and the zing of lemon zest.  We even found one friend eager to taste the dish, and he enjoyed it too.

Having come this far, we must now decide if we want to explore brains further.  Where Batali uses brains as just one note in a broader harmony, Fergus Henderson features them front and centre.  The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating includes a small section of lamb brains recipes, everything from deep fried brains to a terrine.  There's even a recipe for cold lamb's brains on toast, "for those who particularly enjoy the texture of brain."  Hmmm.  I'm not sure we're there yet, Fergus.

Acid flashback: memories of balsamic vinegar and Faith Heller Willinger's Adventures of an Italian Food Lover

It seems fitting, in hindsight, that the first gift I gave Rachel after our wedding was a bottle of balsamic vinegar.  And not just any old bottle, either.  I'm talking about the genuine article, the mahogany ambrosia produced in and around Modena, Italy.

Like many couples, we honeymooned in Italy.  Unlike many couples, however, we spent our first week in Bologna.  It may seem an odd choice, but Bologna and the surrounding region of Emilia-Romagna are widely considered to be home to the best food in Italy.  The region straddles a unique culinary fault line.  To the south lies olive oil country, while to the north, butter is the fat of choice.  These traditions collide in Emilia-Romagna, where Bologna sits at the epicentre of this culinary earthquake.  Rather than choose one fat over another, the bolognesi do what all sensible gluttons would -- eat both -- thus earning themselves the apt moniker, "la grassa," or "Bologna the fat."

After a week of tortelli, squacquerone, and mortadella, we knew why.  One night we'd feast on a luscious ragu or bollito misto, the next would be an orgy of truffles.  Every meal included yards of pasta fresca, or fresh egg pasta.  One particularly memorable meal, at Trattoria da Gianni, included a marvelous cheese plate consisting of nothing more than two of the region's towering culinary achievements: chunks of parmigiano drizzled with balsamic vinegar so intense it tasted more like sharpened honey than vinegar.

That's what makes it special, of course.  The finest balsamic is aged for decades in an ever smaller series of wooden barrels, each imparting subtle hints of flavour while further concentrating flavours through evaporation.  The result is vinegar in name only, for the finest balsamics taste sweet, with a captivating, but not overwhelming, acidity.  This is vinegar that can be sipped like a liqueur, or even enjoyed with dessert. Before we were married, Rachel would sometimes finish a meal with a bowl of strawberries, peaches, or vanilla ice cream drizzled with good balsamic.

But never the best kind.  Not the liquid gold christened with the prized Denominazione di Origine Controllata -- the government designation that certifies the origins and quality of traditional Italian food products -- and sold in a bottle so distinctive it looks more appropriate to a sorcerer's workshop than a kitchen.  Then we entered a tiny little shop in Bologna on Rachel's birthday, fewer than ten days after our wedding.